Jury Finds Against Apollo Group

By

Peter Lattman

Updated Jan. 17, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET

In a rare instance of a securities-fraud class-action lawsuit being tried to a verdict, a jury yesterday found that education company Apollo Group Inc. defrauded investors and ordered it to pay shareholders about $280 million.

Shareholders sued Apollo in October 2004, accusing the company and two of its executives of withholding a Department of Education report that criticized the recruitment policies at the University of Phoenix, one of Apollo's for-profit schools. The report accused the school of paying enrollment...